


99. drawn curtains

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [237]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-26 05:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9864716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “I can tell you apart,” Felix says.“No you can’t.”“Called meHelenayesterday and it broke my heart, Fe, really did.”“I hate you,” Felix mutters into his mashed potatoes.“We love you too,” Helena says, and presses a nasty wet kiss to his cheek. Sarah snorts a laugh so hard that she gets food up her nose and starts coughing. Felix’s sisters. He does love them, but he’s never going to point it out.





	

The plane from England landed four hours ago, and already Felix’s sisters want to go exploring in the woods. Felix doesn’t want to go. They _just landed_. The flight was _so long_. The woman who runs the Birdwatcher-house says he can have a whole bed to himself – and he wants to go to bed now, even if it’s the daytime. But Sarah-and-Helena are twelve, and that means they’re older than him, and Sarah-and-Helena want to go exploring. And if Felix doesn’t come along they’ll go anyways, and it’ll be yet another thing they share that he doesn’t. So he comes.

Outside the light is blinding and the woods are deep. Sarah-and-Helena sneak them out past S and Brenda and a few other stowaways, and then they’re outside. Helena laughs back at all the crows that are cawing in the woods. Sarah says: “Yeah, I know.” And then they’re looking at each other, talking in that language of smiles and blinks that Felix will never be able to speak.

“Are we going in or what?” he says – and he knows he’s whining, but he can’t stop himself. “I’m tired.”

“You’re a baby,” Helena says promptly.

“Come on, Fe, it’s the middle of the day!” Sarah says. “Bet there’s gonna be snakes.”

“I don’t _like_ snakes.”

Helena hisses at him, faking a lunge that makes him shriek. She collapses into laughter again. Her hair falls in tangled coils around her face; thank god she never tries to brush it, otherwise he’d never be able to tell them apart. (Sarah brushes her hair _sometimes_ , which is enough.)

“We’ll keep you safe from ‘em,” Sarah says, and grabs her sister’s hand to tug them towards the woods. Felix follows. He is a moon out of orbit; he is standing outside of a house and trying to understand glimpses he gets through the curtains. Outside, outsider. Helena and Sarah whispering to each other in half-words, laughing at partial phrases. Felix kicks a branch moodily.

They don’t see any snakes. Helena tries to eat berries off a bush, but Sarah stops her. They both climb a tree and sit on the branches laughing at Felix as he tries and fails to follow them. They wade in a creek. Slowly, the sun starts slipping down.

“Are we lost?” Felix says.

“Yeah,” Sarah says.

“No,” Helena says. The twins look at each other. They turn back to Felix. “Maybe,” they say at the same time, and then grin matching wolf-grins. In the dusk Felix can just see the whites of their eyes, the flash of their teeth. Back in England Sarah had made them all watch a scary movie in the middle of the night and Felix doesn’t _want_ to be thinking about it but he is. Monsters in the dark.

“I want to go home,” he says, and his voice shakes. The grins drop. Suddenly Sarah is on one side of him and Helena is on the other, arms slung around his shoulders, grabbing each other’s forearms.

“It’ll be fine,” Sarah says.

“We know the way back,” Helena says.

“We’re gonna keep you safe, okay?”

“Promise.”

They’re warm around him and solid. Sometimes Felix feels bad for people with only one sister: how do you get hugged from both sides? How is it enough?

“I’m telling S you made me,” he says.

The twins groan. “ _No_ ,” Helena says.

“You wouldn’t.”

“We’ll get in trouble!”

“ _Again!_ ”

Felix sticks his tongue out. Helena sticks hers out back, and Sarah musses up his hair. “Dummy,” she says fondly. Over the treetops he can see the lights rising in the distance: the Birdwatcher house, right in front of them. They knew the way the whole time, just like they said.

Sarah-and-Helena get yelled at, but spend the whole time making amused faces at each other instead of paying attention. Felix doesn’t get yelled at at all, which delights him. At dinner – after S finishes saying things like _don’t you know how much I worry_ and _you can’t just wander off_ and other things the twins don’t listen to at all – Helena passes Sarah her roll in exchange for Sarah’s grapes, and they both give Felix their carrots. Sarah’s feet bang into Felix’s under the table, and sometimes it’s even an accident.

“You have a branch in your hair,” Felix whispers to Helena as the grown-ups talk about things the three of them don’t care about.

“It’s on purpose,” Sarah says.

“I’m never taking it out,” Helena says – or something like that, through a mouthful of food.

“Hey, Fe, now you’ll be able to tell us apart.”

“I can tell you apart _now_ ,” Felix says.

“No you can’t.”

“Called me _Helena_ yesterday and it broke my heart, Fe, really did.”

“I hate you,” Felix mutters into his mashed potatoes.

“We love you too,” Helena says, and presses a nasty wet kiss to his cheek. Sarah snorts a laugh so hard that she gets food up her nose and starts coughing. Felix’s sisters. He does love them, but he’s never going to point it out.

“I really do hate you,” he says. “I’m moving out when I’m eighteen. I’ll never speak to either of you again.”

“You’d never survive without us.”

“Would _so_ ,” Felix says, and they’re bickering – warm and familiar, like home. Really: the only thing that’s like home anymore, in this new country, in this new house. He’s scared, but he’s never going to say that either. It’ll be alright. They’re going to keep him safe, Helena and Sarah. After all: they promised.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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